Judge: FirstEnergy broke pollution law at coal-fired plant

This is a big environmental story. I hope this shows that the corporate-types are not going to have it their way, all of the time.
The article:

Judge: FirstEnergy broke pollution law at coal-fired plant

08/08/03
Sabrina Eaton
Plain Dealer Bureau

Washington- A federal judge yesterday found that Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. violated the Clean Air Act when it made $136.4 million in improvements at a coal-fired power plant in Jefferson County.

In a decision that could broadly affect dozens of similar power plants around the country, Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. ruled that FirstEnergy's modifications at the Sammis Plant over a 14-year period were not "routine maintenance" as the company claimed, but were "major modifications" that should have been accompanied by installation of pollution controls under the Clean Air Act.


"By any standard, the enforcement of the Clean Air Act with regard to the Sammis Plant has been disastrous," Sargus wrote in a 109-page ruling that insisted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's erratic enforcement of the 1970 law doesn't absolve the company from liability.

...snip...

Note: Cinergy and American Electric Power are two downstate Ohio electricity generators with similar lawsuits to northern Ohio's First Energy company.

...more from further down in the article...

Spokesmen for Cincinnati-based Cinergy, and Columbus-based American Electric Power, said it's too early to tell how yesterday's decision would affect their cases.

"We'd have to see what the details of this finding are, and see what is similar to our case," said Cinergy spokeswoman Kathy Meinke, whose company reached a tentative settlement with the government in December 2000 but put it on hold when the business-friendly Bush administration took office.

The case against American Electric Power's 11 coal-fired plants is scheduled to go to trial before Sargus after January 2005. Even though the case will be heard by the same judge, AEP spokesman Pat Hemlepp stressed that "the facts included in these cases can vary widely from plant to plant, and company to company."

...snip...

Power companies took solace in the ruling's criticism of the EPA's uneven enforcement of the Clean Air laws. Frank Maisano of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council said it underscores the need for the EPA to come up with rules that would clearly define "routine maintenance," a move environmentalists fear would let the Bush administration tilt the law toward businesses. As the Clean Air prosecution cases initiated under the Clinton administration wind through the courts, the Bush administration has proposed its own anti-pollution initiative, called Clear Skies, that would let power companies with clean operations sell pollution credits to others.

Environmentalists have said Bush's approach would lead to dirtier air, and said yesterday's decision vindicated the Clinton administration's stance.

....end excerpt...